Floor Statements

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration of S. Res. 566 and the Senate proceed to the en bloc consideration of the following Senate resolutions: S. Res. 566, S. Res. 584, and S. Res. 585.

I ask unanimous consent that the resolutions be agreed to, the preambles be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, all en bloc.

Madam President, I understand that there is a bill at the desk, and I ask for its first reading.

I now ask for a second reading and, in order to place the bill on the calendar under the provisions of rule XIV, I object to my own request.

Madam President, finally, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 3 p.m. on Monday, March 11; that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and morning business be closed; further, that following the conclusion of morning business, the Senate proceed to executive session to resume consideration of the Yoon nomination; further, that the cloture motions filed during today's session ripen at 5:30 p.m.

Madam President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. President, tonight, the President of the United States comes before Congress to deliver his State of the Union address to the American people. It is a chance for the Commander in Chief to tell the story of where our country stands today, to hear about the sacrifices we have made as a country, about the challenges we have overcome, and about the kind of future we can achieve if we work together.

America has suffered immense challenge in recent years. When President Biden took office, over 3,000 Americans were dying of COVID a day; over 18 million Americans were on unemployment; our democracy was wounded, damaged, and battered after January 6; and inflation climbed to suffocating heights.

But today, President Biden will make clear that after so much adversity, America's economy is growing, inflation is slowing, and Democrats' agenda is delivering. Our economy has added a record 15 million new jobs--15 million new jobs--since President Biden took office, the greatest turnaround of any President. Last year alone, the economy created more jobs than in any year of the Trump administration.

Less than 2 years ago, inflation was at a crushing 9 percent. But today, it has cooled to the lowest level since the start of the pandemic; and that means that over the last year, the prices of things like milk, eggs, appliances, car rentals, and airfare have all come down.

Across the country, manufacturing and job creation is surging. Communities that have been long overlooked, especially in places like Upstate New York, are getting a second chance. It didn't happen on its own. It is the result of the Democratic agenda; a result of legislation like the American Rescue Plan, Infrastructure, CHIPS and

Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act, which I was happy to champion in a Democratic Senate as I was majority leader.

But statics and data tell only part of the story. Today, I am honored to welcome five inspiring New Yorkers and one brave Ukrainian soldier as my guests for the State of the Union. These six individuals show better than any statistic how America is made stronger by the policies of the Biden administration and a Democratic Senate.

You can look at the example of Andrii Chevozorov, a 25-year-old Ukrainian soldier who has risked his life and limb on the battlefield. After losing his leg in a mine explosion, he came to New York in January for prosthetics and rehabilitation treatment at Staten Island University Hospital.

It is an honor to welcome Andrii, and the Senate thanks him for his sacrifice. He reminds us all about the stakes of the war in Ukraine, of the importance of passing the supplemental. And I will continue working as hard as I can to make sure we get it done. It is a historic moment for America. We cannot turn our back on Ukraine and our other allies and the menaces that we face in the world.

You can also get a look at what is at stake through the story of Kate Farley of Hudson Valley, who is expecting her second child through in vitro fertilization. Without IVF, Kate could have never gotten pregnant. And it is both heartbreaking and enraging that extreme Republicans have made people like Kate worry this vital service will be curtailed. I am honored to welcome her today.

I am also honored to invite my friend Kevin McCaffrey of Suffolk County, the proud president of Teamsters Local 707, as well as Deborah Hartman, a retired UFCW member who used to work at Tops supermarket.

Kevin, of course, is the Republican leader of the Suffolk County legislature, but it didn't stop him and I to work to deal with the pensions that members of his local, Local 707, might have lost. Like many Americans, both Kevin and Deborah and their fellow workers faced the unthinkable prospect of their pensions drying up just a few years ago. Some workers had pensions cut by as much as two-thirds. People who put in money every 2 weeks, hoping, knowing, relying on the fact that their retirement would be secure--it wouldn't make them rich, but would make them secure--saw the rug pulled out from under them. And with Kevin from one end of my State and Deborah from the other, we were able to save those pensions. Republicans refused to offer relief. Democrats had to do it on its own.

Thanks to the reforms in the American Rescue Plan, millions of our union brothers and sisters across New York and America have seen that critical pension relief. These workers who have saved their whole lives to retire with dignity have seen their dignity restored, something all Americans can be very proud of.

I am also proud of New Yorkers like Van Robinson, who I have known for decades and have partnered with to combat gun violence, increase affordable housing, and reduce lead poisoning for underserved communities. Van has been one of the leading voices reconnecting communities divided by highways and for tearing down I-81 in Syracuse; and thanks to the Bipartisan Infrastructure law that I led in Congress, we are getting it done.

Finally, I am delighted to welcome Kim Spica, an equipment Engineer Technician at GlobalFoundries. Kim's story shows what the future can look like for so many New Yorkers. She got her job after finishing a registered apprenticeship program at Hudson Valley Community College.

Recently, GlobalFoundries received the largest preliminary award from the CHIPS and Science Act to date: over $1.5 billion, which will help them build a second chip fab for New York's capital region and create thousands of good-paying jobs like Kim's.

I was proud to lead the way on CHIPS and Science because I knew what it would mean for New Yorkers like Kim in the form of new jobs, greater opportunity, and a more decent life.

So if you want to see how far we have come as a country, these New Yorkers are a good illustration. These guests are the reason our Democratic majority fought so hard to pass the American Rescue Plan, pass infrastructure, pass CHIPS and Science, and pass the Inflation Reduction Act. I knew it would make an enormous difference for New Yorkers like the people who are joining me tonight.

Democrats' agenda, of course, is paying off in other ways. Americans are paying less for insulin. Prescription drugs for seniors on Medicare have been capped. Student loan borrowers have seen hundreds of millions of debt forgiveness.

So, tonight, the difference between the parties will be as clear as night and day. Democrats are focused on lowering costs, creating jobs, and putting money in people's pockets, but the hard right, which too often runs the Republican Party in the House and now increasingly in the Senate, is consumed by chaos, bullying, and attacking things like women's freedom of choice.

The Republican front runner for President has made it abundantly clear that he is not running to make people's lives better but, rather, on airing his personal political grievances. Donald Trump's cynical power grab even destroyed the best change at border security that Congress has seen in decades--a bill that even a Wall Street Journal poll from this morning shows that Americans clearly supported. Americans wanted bipartisan border security. Congress had bipartisan security ready to go, and Donald Trump and his MAGA Republican followers are at fault for killing it in its tracks. That is shameful cynicism that once again hurts Americans.

Ideologues cannot run the show here. We have to fight these things.

So I thank President Biden for his leadership. The road hasn't been easy. The work is not yet done. But we have come far. We have overcome so much. And there is still so much on the line for American families, American values, and America's future. It is imperative we stay the course and finish the job we began 3 years ago.

Mr. President, on the appropriations bill, well, last night, the House passed the six appropriations bills with an overwhelming bipartisan vote--339 to 85.

Last night, the Senate took the first step to advance the appropriations bill via voice vote, which I hope portends more bipartisan cooperation moving forward. The watchwords for the Senate will be ``cooperation'' and ``speed'' as we work to pass these appropriations bills before tomorrow night's deadline.

It is noteworthy that a majority of both parties in the House--a majority of even the Republicans--supported this legislation.

Of course, the process is never easy in divided government, but with hard work, cooperation, and persistence, good things can happen if we put working together before other extraneous and often destructive issues.

The Senate will continue our work on these appropriations bills today so we can finish the package before tomorrow night's deadline. We are close to the finish line, but it will take bipartisan cooperation to get us there.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at a time to be determined by the majority leader, in consultation with the Republican leader, the Senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations: Calendar No. 532, 533; that there be 2 minutes for debate, equally divided, in the usual form on each nomination; that upon the use or yielding back of time, the Senate proceed to vote without intervening action or debate on the nominations in the order listed; that if confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate; that no further motions be in order; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action and the Senate then resume legislative session.

Mr. President, further, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the following nominations en bloc: Calendars No. 360, 280, 361, 362, 363, 359, 258, 259, 118, 119, 120, 531; that the Senate vote on the nominations en bloc, without intervening action or debate; that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and the Senate then resume legislative session.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to legislative session and be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate recess until 8:20 p.m. today and proceed as a body to the Hall of the House of Representatives for the joint session of Congress provided under the provisions of H. Con. Res. 93; that upon dissolution of the joint session, the Senate adjourn until 10 a.m. on Friday, March 8; that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and morning business be closed; that upon the conclusion of morning business, the Senate resume consideration of the House message to accompany H.R. 4366; further, that the cloture motion with respect to the House Message ripen at 12 noon.

So we will gather in the Senate Chamber at 8:20 p.m. this evening to proceed as a body to the House for the State of the Union.

Senators should expect a live quorum tomorrow morning at approximately 10 a.m. Let me repeat that: Senators should expect a live quorum tomorrow morning at approximately 10 a.m.

If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask that it recess under the previous order.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, with just a few days to go before Friday's funding deadline to keep the government open, both Chambers must continue working quickly, decisively, and with bipartisan cooperation to avoid a shutdown.

The House will vote today on the six appropriations bills we reached bipartisan agreement on, where I expect they will pass with strong bipartisan support. As soon as the House passes these appropriations bills and sends them to the Senate, I will put the bills on the floor so we can pass them and fund these six departments with time to spare before Friday's deadline.

It took a lot of bipartisan cooperation to reach this agreement on these six appropriations bills. Now, it will take more bipartisan cooperation to finish the job.

The appropriations process hasn't been easy in divided government, but after a lot of hard work, late nights, and persistence, we now have six strong appropriations bills that include aggressive investments in American families, moms and kids, veterans, workers, and more. And we prevented any devastating cuts or poison pills pushed by the hard right.

We will fully fund WIC, meaning no mom or kid will be denied vital nutrition assistance. We will protect funding to help Americans, especially rural Americans, afford their rent and keep a roof over their head. We will increase funding for programs and services that support our veterans. And in this year's appropriations, we prevented the worst of the devastating cuts and poison pills pushed by the hard right.

Passing these bills will give us the much-needed momentum to pass this package of spending bills by the March 22 deadline. But as I have said repeatedly, it will take bipartisan cooperation to finish the job.

Mr. President, last November, I wrote to the Federal Trade Commission, the FTC, urging them to investigate Exxon's $60 billion blockbuster merger with Pioneer, one of the largest mergers in energy industry in two decades. I warned that Exxon's deals--and Chevron's announced merger with Hess--had the red flags of anticompetitive behavior. I warned that these deals could open the floodgates to more consolidation, less competition, and higher prices, just to pad the profits of the largest oil companies.

It turns out I was right. Since last November, there have been at least four multibillion-dollar mergers announced among America's large oil companies; and in all of 2023, there was an astounding 250 billion dollars' worth of oil and gas deals.

So today, I authored a letter joined by 50 of my Senate and House Democratic colleagues in urging the FTC to increase its scrutiny over this wave of oil mergers to see if the mergers violate antitrust laws.

Big Oil is alarmingly getting even bigger, and the FTC must investigate for the sake of consumers, workers, small businesses, because when oligopolistic behavior reigns, costs go up, and the public pays the price.

History has shown that when America's largest oil companies go through consolidation, it eventually leads to higher gas prices. According to the Government Accountability Office, the GAO, the five biggest mergers of the 1990s and 2000s led to tangible spikes in prices, particularly the merger between Exxon and Mobil, which I fiercely opposed as a Congressman at that time.

I have always said that one of the greatest mistakes of the Democratic administration in the 1990s was to allow this merger between Exxon and Mobil, as well as the merger between Chevron and Texaco, because, as we saw, competition greatly suffered and costs went up for consumers.

That is why I strongly opposed those deals back then. When you look back, you say: How the heck did even a Democratic administration allow Exxon and Mobil to merge, Chevron and Texaco to merge? But, sadly, history is repeating itself when it comes to oil mergers; although, the Biden administration has not been supportive.

And let's not kid ourselves, these mergers aren't just about efficiency or lowering costs. These mergers are about buying out the competition so the newly consolidated industry can boost profits at the expense of consumers. And these profits have become

the jet fuel, so to speak, for a record wave of stock buybacks and grotesque levels of executive pay. In January, Chevron announced $75 billion in stock buybacks, which will cut the number of shares by as much as 20 percent. Exxon, likewise, announced another $35 billion in buybacks for this year and next. These are just two examples of many.

Americans, meanwhile, will continue to feel the sting of Big Oil's greed every time they go to the pump. That is why we are calling on the FTC to look into this pattern of consolidation announced in recent months and step in, if necessary.